Outdoor Adventures and Misadventures

By Chris Kellogg

This book chronicles many stories that cover deep-sea fishing in the Bahamas and a lightning strike there, too, as well as fly fishing in the Catskills. Then there is hunting quail in Florida and big game in Kenya. Not left out are stories of Palm Beach society, adventures in Mexico, and memorable automobile moments. These are just a few of many varied tales best told next to the fireplace with a drink in hand. Some stories should bring a chuckle or a real belly laugh. Enjoy the many adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889603832

Book preview

Outdoor Adventures and Misadventures

Chris Kellogg

Copyright © 2023 Chris Kellogg

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88960-382-5 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88960-383-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Daydreaming

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Fishing

Spearfishing for Lobster

Spearfishing in Palm Beach

Save the Sandpiper Society

My First Time Trout Fishing

Bass Fishing in Philadelphia

Fly Fishing Tricks

Lost on the Beaverkill

An Evening on the West Branch

Sticking Trout

The Cooners Society

No Respect

Personal Best

Prisoner of the Sea

Lightning Number Two

Fishing at Walker's Cay in July

Seven Captains

Tribute to Neptune

Hunting or Fishing Question

Chapter 2

HUNTING

Daydreaming

My Amistad Tower Shoot

Mountain Sheep and Setters at Ninety

Ducks and More Ducks

Mexican Ducks

San Fernando Mexican Ducks

You Ain't No Redneck, or Finding the Right Gun

Born a Sportsman

A Day with Rosie

The Snipe Season

Hunting Dog Tragedies

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

New Tricks

Beginnings in the Field

Dove Opener

Habitat

The Gallberries or the Pines

Gored by a Deer

Home Invasion

Advice for Young'uns

Next Generation of Hunters

Heritage and Culture

Memories

Outdoor Friends

Predator

Chapter 3

AFRICA

Close Call on Safari

Hunting and Control

Eland

Monkeys

Guinea Fowl

Olive Pigeons

Game Birds of Kenya

Chapter 4

CARS

Hal Took Control

Oldsmobile Station Wagon Chronicles

Curfew

Noises in the Audi

Little Red Wagon

A 1939 English Austin

Chapter 5

FOOD

Maple Syrup

Applejack

No Crusts

Abundance of Avocados

Chapter 6

PERSONAL

White Swans Lost

Hanneman Hospital

Saved a Man's Life Today

The Mafia

Hell's Kitchen

My Gold Baby Diaper Pin

Dorothy Spreckels Munn

Mother-in-Law

Persistence

My Defibrillator

Finding the Sunshine

Hank's Japanese Tea Garden

Adventures with the Next Generation

Combat Zone

Cheating Death

How Much Longer?

And I Forgot

The Gardener's Dog

Chapter 7

Closing Remarks

Vanishing Wildlife and Wilderness

About the Author

Preface

Daydreaming

There's not a cloud in the beautiful, deep blue sky today. I am lying next to a banana tree with its young, green bananas clustered above me. I am a warrior hunter searching for meaning and finding it in nature in the country where I feel free now, having survived a heart attack. I feel like a salmon swimming upstream for the last time. I even have age spots on my hands to remind me of the times I have already spent here. I have tended to become more spiritual in my daydreams, knowing that heaven is just waiting. I devote my time to absorbing the sweet fruits, smells and sights that are outdoors as my front door swings open.

Hunting with my retriever is the ultimate outdoor experience for me. To have a dog that you have trained from a pup at a run quartering in front of you, looking for the scent of a game bird, is truly a joy to watch. Then suddenly Rosie stops and she freezes, her tail erect, pointing a quail; you instantly snap a picture in your mind of her locked up tight, and moving forward. Careful, Rosie, then Steady, I say. The cock bird flushes and I wait a second as I bring the 28-gauge Spanish side-by-side shotgun up. I fire as the bird goes off to the right, past the clump of palmettos and the bird tumbles down. Rosie has seen the quail down and rushes over to pick it up.

Tenderly holding the bird in her mouth she runs back to me. She drops it at my

Acknowledgments

I really enjoyed the eight-year challenge of putting together my best-selling first book, My Mother Shoots Elephants. I now have scrounged up some good stories that were missed in the first book with many more flash stories for your entertainment. This was accomplished with help from Bob Hayes, who organized the entire project, and Valerie Salembier, who did some of the massive editing it required.

A good story is important to tell, but being able to tell it well was accomplished by Valerie, who reedited these tales five times—yes, five times. I hope you enjoy these adventures and misadventures in the outdoors.

My next challenge is a book about my mother's twenty years of wildlife conservation, her safaris, and her farm travels in British East Africa circa 1955 to 1978, stories taken from her extensive notes and field logs. This should be good reading!

Again, thanks, Vicki, for your support and tolerance since much of this was written at around two or three in the morning when I couldn't sleep and because there were no daily distractions.

Chapter 1

Fishing

Spearfishing for Lobster

When the lobsters were walking around on the ocean floor in Palm Beach, I got lucky. Every once in a while and for some odd reason, they take a walk together. When I went out in my skiff to fish that day, hundreds of these creatures were piled up along the south side of the inlet seawall. You were limited to taking just ten lobsters at a time in ten feet of water, and there was quite a crowd claiming their ten, including me! It was a sight to behold, but unfortunately, I have only seen that once.

I was snorkeling along the beach during lobster season, pulling the inflatable mat that was good to throw found treasures in or to take a rest. I was using a frog-gigging rig which was a pole with a three-pronged fork. Being unsuccessful in catching lobster with it, I called a good friend, Sam Colt, who was a big hunter and fisherman. He said it's illegal, but use a mop and the lobster will get tangled up in it. Then you can easily pull him out of his hole. That didn't work for me, so I called him back. Well, Sam said, here is a foolproof system. Sneak into Vicki's intimates drawer and steal some of her pantyhose. Straighten out the coat hanger, and tie it to the end of a coat hanger. Let me know how that works for you, but just so you know, that's illegal too.

For the third time, I went off having high hopes of catching a lobster dinner. On my way to the beach, a housekeeper from my cousin's house poked her head out and said, What do you have there? I said, I have pantyhose on the end of a coat hanger. And she said, You can catch a lot of things with that. I had no luck, and I was exhausted, so at this point, I told Sam nothing was working for me. Then he asked, What type of pantyhose did you use? I used my wife's Donna Karan pantyhose. Aha, Sam said, you can't use designer pantyhose because they are much too slippery. You need to go to Publix and get the cheap ones that come in a plastic egg. They will snag the lobster for you. That was it for me. I gave it up and took my wife out to a restaurant for a nice lobster dinner that night.

Only in Palm Beach!

Spearfishing in Palm Beach

In 1936, my grandfather built the home in which I now live. It's a three-thousand-square-foot brick house on one and three-quarter acres on Palm Beach Island. When my grandmother Marie Louise Wanamaker Munn had an affair with the king-in-waiting of Italy, Gurnee divorced her right after this international scandal broke. Gurnee had lived with Marie Louise in the fourteen-thousand-square-foot home on the beach that was built in 1923 by the famous architect Mizner. My home was known as the Lodge, built directly behind the oceanfront home. At times, visitors to Louwana—that's what the house was named—would stop and ask directions. Then they would ask if I were the caretaker!

Mom lived in the Lodge after Grandpa and Cousin Roddy and Amie De Herren lived in the large mansion on the beach. Gurnee's brother, Charlie Munn, married Dorothy Spreckels of the sugar fortune and built a Mizner next to Gurnee on the ocean. The compound became known as Munnsville. That's the background of this story.

Amie was a very elegant Brazilian woman who held many significant social events at her home. I frequently went spearfishing in the ocean, and one time, Amie asked if she could have some of my catch. I gave her some of my fish, and one day soon after, as I emerged from the ocean some three hundred yards down the beach, an unfamiliar man walking down the beach approached me and said, Are you Mr. Kellogg? Yes, I am, I responded. Well, Mr. Kellogg, I have been asked to tell you that your fish soufflé is now ready. Surprised and not quite understanding, I looked down the beach where the stranger was pointing, and there, in his black formal butler's uniform, was Héctor waving at me. I rushed home to change for a most lovely luncheon. Only in Palm Beach!

Save the Sandpiper Society

Every season in Palm Beach, there are at least five hundred black-tie events. There are events for every known disease and cause that you can possibly think of—that is, except for the lowly sandpipers. The sandpipers are a threatened species. You can observe their plight at the ocean's edge. They can be seen running for their lives as each wave crashes on the beach, and that covers up their only food supply. They are desperate, dashing back and forth just to survive.

Please donate as much as you possibly can, or even more than you possibly can. You can mail your donation to Save the Sandpiper Society of Palm Beach. Members can purchase banners, sculptures, coffee cups, hats, patches, blankets, and more. You will receive a certified, notarized original membership confirmation in the mail. Before the kickoff party in November, there is a march planned on Worth Avenue, so please attend if you can. And then there is the black-tie event at the Breakers.

If you are a board member, we meet in Bali four times a year to count the birds while, of course, enjoying refreshments on the beach. The Drunken Donkey is everyone's favorite. Call 800-561-8000. Sandpiper membership can be paid in Bitcoin or new coin or whatever-the-hell-you-like coin. But hurry as membership is limited to only those who can pay. If you have an NRA discount card, remember to use it for those of you who like to shoot those tiny rail birds in October in the salt marshes of New Jersey. If this program is successful, the sandpiper could be the next game bird for you to shoot!

My First Time Trout Fishing

My best friend in fourth grade boarding school was Deering Howe. One day, he invited me to go trout fishing on his family's lake. He told me it was the Catskill Mountain's highest lake and that we would definitely catch some fish.

In the early summer of the mid-1950s, we drove from New York City to the Catskills. We stopped in Liberty near Grossinger's, a famous resort where I was told you had to be Jewish in order to enter. And how well I remember the many small shops with pickle barrels out front. I never knew pickles were such a big deal.

We arrived with our caretaker Bill driving a woodie station wagon to the most elegant and exquisite lake cottage at the top of the mountain. The cottage had beautiful pine paneling inside and out. It had a large open fireplace, fishing pictures, fish mounds, a rack of bamboo fishing rods, hats, boots, and assorted fancy fly boxes. I had been an avid bass fisherman on the small lakes on our family farm in Bedford, New York, but fly fishing was new to me.

Lovely dinner and early to bed. The next morning, Bill took us out on the lake in a Grand Lakes twenty-foot cedar and canvas canoe. We trolled around, not having any success. After an exquisite lunch, we were taken to several high mountain streams in the afternoon. This was a challenge. I had to learn to cast a little fly thing with a bamboo rod instead of a plug on a spinning rod. Deering showed me how, but you know it's not so easy when you're a beginner. I'm telling you this because of what happened next. As I was whipping a scrawny fake fly, I finally caught a fish! It came flying past me on my back cast. Yes, flying past me! It sure was a cute little thing, about five inches long. And Deering kept egging me on and told me that my five incher was a really good catch.

I had been catching twelve-to-thirteen-inch, one-to-two-pound bass at home and now all this fuss for what? Oh, yes, we proceeded to catch several more of these bonsai-stunted little fellows much to the delight of Deering who continued to rave about it in high-pitched tones. That's a really nice one, Chris!

I was shocked, but I recently read in the latest issue of Trout Unlimited magazine that catching four and five inchers is great sport. It's also a great opportunity to expound on how lovely these little fellows were. I, on the other hand, have pursued twelve to twenty-four inchers in the Delaware River for the past forty years. But four inches, really? That was a good start for this nine-year-old and one I will never forget. My first time trout fishing was a success!

Bass Fishing in Philadelphia

One early spring day, Joe said we should go fishing for smallmouth bass in the Schuylkill River that runs through Philadelphia. It was a short drive to the launching area. Joe started the five-horsepower engine mounted to the squared-off transom of the cedar-lined quite famous Grand Lakes Weaton Model canoe. We then headed upriver. Ronson, his German shorthair hunting dog, was perched over the bow looking for rocks that might get in our way. Joe's dogs